Some Artistic Values But Overall Big Mess

Rating: 4/10 (19 July 2004)

This Danny Boyle's action sci-fi flick, which illustrates a nightmarish near future, holds some artistic values but overall it is a big mess. While metaphors of AIDS and nuclear war are well-presented, towards the end, political power conflicts and fights in the army ruin the chance for the film to be successfully coherent.
Some notable merits include casting, art direction, and editing. The combination of a white male anti-hero type and a decisive black female is freshly contemporary. The opening sequence shows one of the most memorable sci-fi art directions in recent years: caged monkeys exposed to video monitors that display footage of war and violence. Fast-paced editing on attacks of the infected, without clearly showing the attackers, effectively produces the fear of the attacked.